A Micro Urban Aquaponic Farm started in George

George Municipality is proud to announce that we have started our own Micro Urban Aquaponics Farm in George with Grow Organic Plus as the green company that started with the building of the farm.

For the last 8 years Grow Organic Plus has developed one of the world’s Most Highly Productive “Micro Urban Organic Aquaponic Farm” that can feed hundreds of people Balanced Organic meals per day.

Mr Pedro Oliphant, Manager: Local Economic Development at George Municipality, is very excited about the prospects of this new project. He said many South Africans are vulnerable to food insecurity. He said for George this type of farming means healthier, cheaper food including, job creation, self-sustainability, saving water and environmentally friendly produce. The farm is situated on farming land at the back of Blanco.

Oliphant said George Municipality provided the land and did the excavation on the land for the project. The rest of the project is carried by Grow Organic Plus. After the training process of certain community members, the community will form a cooperation and operate the farm. The community will have 20 to 30% shares in the cooperation.

Mr Gerhard Swanepoel, the brother of Dr. Frans Swanepoel - Interdisciplinary PhD degree in Business Management and Marketing 2008 Texas USA, the founder, CEO and director of the Micro Urban Aquaponics Farm, started with the Pilot project in George. This project will be built on a mere 500 square meters. (It can fit in the backyard of suburbs and townships or even on top of shopping centres).

The unit structure is already built and ready to be assembled. Swanepoel said, “we are proud to say that most items were manufactured in George by local people.

Swanepoel says, the Grow Organic Plus Unit is a unique modular semi pre-assembled system. It’s plastic panels, piping and metal framework can be shipped anywhere around the world to be easily and quickly assembled along with supplied instructions. It’s perfect even for terrain not suitable for farming such as mountainous or arid landscapes.

In 2015 Grow Organic Plus has been chosen as one of the top 10 Green companies in South Africa through the “JustAdGreen” organisation sponsored by J.P. Morgan Bank.

In 2016 Grow Organic Plus has been chosen as one of the top 5 Entrepreneurial companies in South Africa by a European Board that represents 160 countries and was then sponsored a stand and a space on the agenda to present the business to the ultra-rich and Government representatives of all 160 counties on the “Global Entrepreneurial Congress” held in Sandton Convention Centre in March 2017. This was the first time that this congress was held in South Africa.

Image: Gerhard Swanepoel from Grow Organic Plus, John Galant from George Municipality Civil Engineering Directorate who started working the land, Pedro Oliphant, Manager: Local Economic Development and Desmond Carolus from the Local Economic Development department at the start of the aquaponic farm.